The Godbeites were not simply another ephemeral Mormon dissenting group.
Although their "New Movement" was designed to transform Mormonism in the late
1860s and early 1870s, it had less of an effect on religion than it had on the
cultural, economic, intellectual, political, and social fabric of Utah
Territory.

The group's direct and indirect bequests were many. Their independent journal,
the Utah Magazine, was successively transformed into the Mormon
Tribune and, later, the Salt Lake Tribune. As a result, the
tradition of an independent non-Mormon press became a Utah reality. Their
"Liberal Institute," perhaps Salt Lake City's largest hall during the 1870s,
provided a forum for a stream of nationally and internationally renowned
lecturers, who in conservative Utah spoke of "liberalism," "radical reform,"
and even "free thought spiritualism." Similar though smaller centers were
established in Beaver, Cottonwood, Jordan, Logan, Mount Pleasant, Park City,
and Ogden. Godbeite T.B.H. Stenhouse wrote a seminal Mormon and Utah history,
Rocky Mountain Saints (1873), while his wife, Fanny, outraged by
polygamy, penned the influential anti-Mormon tract, "Tell It All": The Story
of a Life Experience in Mormonism (1872). Godbeites also challenged Brigham
Young's prescriptions for a regulated economy and the avoidance of precious
metals mining. Finally, the Godbeite Liberal party was Utah's first opposition
political organization. Wrested from its founders' control and radicalized, it
challenged the Mormon establishment from the early 1870s to the eve of Utah
statehood.

The Godbeites formally declared their opposition to Brigham Young and
Mormonism in October 1869. But movement had earlier roots. Its name came from
London-born William S. Godbe. Twice shipwrecked as a youth, the
sixteen-year-old Godbe walked to Utah following his conversion to Mormonism. He
rose swiftly in the church. By the 1860s Godbe was a bishop's counselor,
Brigham Young's friend and protégé, and, as owner of the Godbe
Exchange Building that housed the Godbe-Mitchell drug and sundry business, was
one of the territory's ten wealthiest men.

Godbe was drawn to E.L.T. Harrison, with whom he began a long-standing
friendship and intellectual collaboration. Earlier, Harrison and Edward W.
Tullidge published the mildly skeptical Peep O'Day, apparently the
Intermountain West's first magazine. Increasingly, Godbe, Harrison, Tullidge,
and others, including Eli B. Kelsey and William H. Shearman, met to discuss
religious and public policy. The group was remarkably homogeneous. With the
exception of Kelsey, all were British-born and carried with them the ideals of
British debate and dissent. All had been merchants. Each described spiritual
experiences that propelled him into Mormonism. Moreover, they had above-average
education and literary ability, and were attuned to the intellectual currents
of the age. Each also became increasingly skeptical of his Mormon faith.

The immediate irritant was Brigham Young's economic and social blueprint for
the territory, which called for cooperation, unity, and the subjugation of
public and private resources to the Mormon commonwealth. His countermeasures to
the coming of the transcontinental railroad also increased their concern. While
favoring the railroad, Young understood that it might destroy his ideal Zion.
Accordingly, he urged wage deflation to preserve home industries, prohibited
trade with non-Mormon merchants, and continued his sanctions against
precious-metals mining. Godbe and his coterie were dismayed. They believed such
measures were impractical and wrong-headed. They prevented Utah's cultural and
economic integration with the East.

There was also a spiritual, or spiritualist, dimension to their dissent. In
October 1868 Godbe and Harrison traveled to New York City, ostensibly for
business and recreation. They apparently used the occasion to seek direction
from a spiritualist medium, Charles Foster. Fifty s_ances followed, confirming
their religious doubts and mandating a radical restructuring of Mormonism. "The
whole superstructure of a grand system of theology was unfolded to our minds,"
Harrison later wrote. The system included a devaluation of the Book of
Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants, and the rejection of a personal
deity, the literal resurrection, and the doctrine of the atonement.

Spiritualism was almost a perfect solution for the Godbeite doubters. Its
parallels with Mormonism eased the pain involved in their transfer of
commitment. Both movements affirmed the eternal nature of the individual and
taught the validity of spiritual experience. Each had an upstate New York
genesis. Moreover, their new spiritualistic view allowed Godbe and Morrison to
validate their previous religious experiences. These now seemed mere
preliminaries to their new, higher revelation. There also was an additional
advantage: nineteenth-century spiritualism had a liberal, intellectual content
that fit the Godbeite mood.

Returning to Utah, Godbe and Harrison at first chose not to emphasize their
refined religious views. Instead, the two founded the Utah Magazine and
increasingly used the forum to call in question Brigham Young's temporal
policy. Their converts included T.B.H. Stenhouse, editor of the pro-Mormon
Salt Lake Telegraph, and his wife Fanny; John Tullidge, musician brother
of Edward; Fred A. Perris, merchant; Joseph Salisbury, labor leader and writer;
George Watt, church recorder and formerly Brigham Young's personal secretary;
and Henry Lawrence, partner in a leading Salt Lake City merchandising firm.

By early October 1869 there was no longer a question about the magazine's
tone. Church officials apparently issued a caution, and followed it with
mission calls to Harrison, Kelsey, and Shearman, apparently to test or renew
their commitment to the Mormon Church. Several weeks later, the Utah
Magazine answered with "The True Development of the Territory," an essay
that argued for Utah mineral development. More than expressing a difference of
opinion, it meant to force the issue by publicly repudiating Brigham Young's
leadership. Indeed, the New York séance revelations promised that the
issue of mining would be the means of overthrowing the Mormon theocracy. The
Godbeite leaders were excommunicated on 25 October 1869.

At first the New Movement looked formidable, bringing together Godbeite
intellectuals and several prominent anti-Mormon merchants in a "reform" of
Mormonism. A "Church of Zion" was organized. Relying on the Mormon
organizational model, Godbe and Harrison proclaimed themselves "counselors" in
the First Presidency and vainly hoped that Joseph Smith III, the son of
Mormonism's founding prophet, might assume primary leadership. That role
eventually went to Amasa Lyman, a disfellowshipped Mormon apostle. But the
Godbeite Church, never more than several hundred strong, floundered when faced
with the increasingly frank religious expressions of its leaders. Their
"advanced" and spiritualistic theology simply had little appeal. The Godbeites
did not gainsay the obvious and conceded their "church" was simply a vehicle
for broad religious association. Eventually, the phrases and topics of
traditional religion were quietly dropped and left behind.

This spirit characterized Godbeite reform. With the exception of the books of
the Stenhouses, the tone of their reform was respectful and moderate--at least
in comparison with previous Mormon dissenter agitation. Not until the
Tribune and the Liberal Party passed out of Godbeite hands did those
institutions become strident. The Liberal Institute, the Godbeites' last
refuge, continued to argue into the middle 1880s for cultural pluralism and the
integration of Utah with the American mainstream. At their institute, itinerant
mediums and "harmonial" lecturers provided a continuing counterpoint to Utah's
prevailing culture, even embracing such daring causes as racial and sexual
equality and a prescient theory of governmental social intervention.

See: Ronald W. Walker, "The Commencement of the Godbeite Protest: Another
View," Utah Historical Quarterly 42 (Summer 1974); and Walker, "When the
Spirits Did Abound: Nineteenth-Century Utah's Encounter With Free-Thought
Radicalism," Utah Historical Quarterly 50 (Fall 1982); Walker, "Edward
Tullidge: Historian of the Mormon Commonwealth," Journal of Mormon History
3 (1976); and Walker, "The Stenhouses and the Making of a Mormon Image,"
Journal of Mormon History 1 (1974); Walker, "The
Keep-A-Pitchinin: Or the Mormon Pioneer Was Human," Brigham Young
University Studies 14 (Spring 1974); and Walker, "The Liberal Institute: A
Case Study in National Assimilation," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon
Thought 10 (Autumn 1977); Beverly Beeton, "I Am an American Woman:
Charlotte Ives Cobb Godbe Kirby," Journal of the West 27 (April 1988);
Davis Bitton, "Mormonism's Encounter With Spiritualism," Journal of Mormon
History 1 (1974); and Ronald G. Watt, "Sailing The Old Ship Zion: The Life
of George D. Watt," Brigham Young University Studies 18 (Fall 1977).